kineFX book RIG - Cover/Pages

[NoaX]

Hey everyone,

I'm trying to update an old-bone setup to kinefx workflow and I'm a bit stumbled! (To me this seems like a fairly basic setup, yet unusually complicated so I might be missing something)

Step 1:

Comparing Blender to Kinefx, and bringing over that workflow to Houdini:

Here is a screenshot of a cover-rig in blender, (and here are the steps Cover rig )

 

Step 2: (Houdini Version)

PROBLEM: 

I have 3 ways to rig this that I know of, I could do a captured packed geo but then I'd lose the deformation of the edges like the blender example, so that won't work. Option 2, I can do a capture by Harmonic using tetembed or tet conform.. but I have to paint my weights and can't seem to link 'top cover bone,' to 'top cover mesh,' like you can with Blender. And lastly, we can use capture by proximity which always works but you have to fiddle with the tolerance and the result is not clean as the Houdini system is guessing an approximation.

 

What is the proper workflow for this? 

book_cover.hiplc